The major social media companies are facing wide criticism for failing to deal with vaccine misinformation on their platforms. In response, the likes of Facebook and Twitter and Google (which owns YouTube) have stated that they will take more action against false and misleading information about covid-19 vaccines.
This is undeniably positive, but these policy updates will not cover many types of posts that have the potential to lead to vaccine hesitancy. Take a mother’s recent post on a public Facebook group: “Prior to her 6 week vaccinations, my daughter was perfectly fine,” but afterwards “she was having major seizures . . . has anyone else had this happen after their 6 week vaccinations?” Should this post be removed? I doubt many people would think so. But should it be labelled as potentially misleading? Should it have a link to a vaccine information centre? Should it be demoted so that fewer people see it in their newsfeeds?
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